The Grand Relationship: Promoting a Strong Bond between Your Children and Their Grandparents

When many of us were young, we lived close to our extended families. We spent time with aunts and uncles, grandparents and godparents. We were surrounded by people that loved us. We learned from them, and we enjoyed being with them. Now, many of us live further apart. Families don’t always live in the same towns and cities, or even countries, which can make it harder to promote a strong bond between your children and their extended family.

However, it’s essential that you do. These relationships are crucial. Grandparents love your children. They’ve got a lot to share with them, and this relationship can be very good for both generations. Strong relationships within the family can mean that you can one day provide Live-In Care if it’s needed, which can have many advantages. But, how do you promote these relationships when age and distance get in the way?

Share Stories

If there is one thing that the older generation have undoubtedly got more of than the rest of us, it’s stories. They’ve got a life full of experience and adventure. Sit and share stories between generations. Learn from each other, play games, role play the stories and share adventures. If these stories aren’t shared, they are in danger of being lost forever, as they happened before the days of online sharing. So, make the most of them while you can.

Get Online

Talking of online sharing, we all do it all of the time. We share our lives online every day. It’s a great way to keep in touch with our friends and family that might live a little further away. Your parents might already be online, but are they making the most of it? Wherever you all live, video chat especially is a fantastic way to communicate. When your children are younger, video chat as a family as often as you can. Then, when your children start to get older, let them call their grandparents themselves, but encourage them to keep in touch as much as possible.

Write Letters

The art of letter writing is something that’s rather gone out of fashion as online communication has become easier, faster and more accessible. But it can still be an excellent way to communicate. Receiving a long, lovingly written letter can brighten someone’s day tremendously. Learning to write letters is a great way to share stories, as well as a way to improve your children’s writing skills.

You should also encourage them to send their grandparents thank you notes and cards. These small gestures can improve someone’s day and strengthen this vital bond.

Encourage them to Share Hobbies

Your children might spend their days playing on Minecraft or with their Marvel toys, while your parents enjoy good crossword puzzles and listening to plays on the radio. To you, it might seem like they’ve got little in common. But, if you take the time to help them to share these hobbies with each other, you might find that they have so much more fun together, learn more about each other and grow closer because of it.